


the kaleidoscope view

by constellatory



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-04
Updated: 2013-04-04
Packaged: 2017-12-07 10:43:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constellatory/pseuds/constellatory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He assures her it's not a date, but it is. Sneaking onto the field at twilight is pretty dorky, but she'll indulge him for now. It's a little like living out someone's sweet, goofy dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the kaleidoscope view

**Author's Note:**

> Do I ever not write things for friends? Hey, look, an actual ship. Say hello to my actual one true pairing which I will ship forever. The first of maybe many now that I seemed to have cracked the code on how one writes John Motherfucking Egbert.

They find their way up the bleachers sometime after dusk. He was the one who suggested the idea, but she was the one who found the gap in the old chain link fence that would let them in. The field yawns its emptiness into the fading sky, and the air swirls with gathering mist. He gives her a push and takes off running, laughing his stupid, goofy laugh, and she bolts after him, all bright and deadly intent, and tackles him to the ground where they come to rest in a tangle of limbs and grass-damp hoodies.

"John," she says, after a moment, "why are we here?"

He disentangles himself from her and stands, holding out a hand to help her to her feet. She doesn't need it, never needs it, and they both know it; but she takes it anyway.

"You'll see. Come on, we need to get up the bleachers before the sun sets!"

He starts off again, but she doesn't immediately follow. Instead she slips her hands into the pocket of her oversize hoodie (blue, a pale blue, to his orange and yellow) and watches him walk, studying the planes of his back and the breadth of his shoulders. There's an unselfconscious ease to the way he moves that she sometimes envies him for, because everything about her is self-conscious. She wonders sometimes that he doesn't seem to notice, or if he does notice, he doesn't really care. He just nudges her shoulder and grins and says her name, _Vriska_ , like it really means something.

She has always loved the way he says her name.

Before he can notice her absence she's caught back up to him and they're walking side by side in companionable silence up to the bleachers. It's a big high school, so they're big bleachers, set into a hill and vaulting twenty-five rows up. They make a game out of climbing, first trying to jump from one row to the next and giving that up when John almost breaks his nose after mistiming a leap. After that it becomes race to the top, and that turns into a tie when Vriska (intentionally, it must be said) crashes into him. They end up pressed together in the row between two benches, hidden from all sight and light, and when he cards his fingers into her hair she shuts her eyes and presses her forehead to his.

"C'mon, I'm serious! You've got to see this. I wouldn't bring you here if I didn't mean it."

Vriska has nothing to say to that, regarding him with semi-serious and curious eyes as she climbs back to her feet. She offers him her hand now, and he takes it without any protest. This time, however, he does not let go, and instead tugs her up the last two sets of benches to the very top.

By now, the sun is close to setting. It skims the trees on the opposite side of the field, across the street, and its rays begin to break and refract as they get lost and tangled up in the leaves and the pine needles. It is a pretty sunset, but otherwise unremarkable. They stand for a moment in silence, contemplating it, until Vriska elbows him gently in the side and arches a brow at him. John just slaps his forehead and says, "Shit, I forgot! Sorry. Here." And with no further ado, he reaches over to pluck her glasses from her face.

She starts to protest, instantly a little irritated - he should know she hates it when people touch her glasses - but he shushes her obnoxiously and actually presses on her chin with his knuckles to get her to look back over the trees.

_Oh._

Without her glasses on, everything is a little blurrier. And with the mist gathering as the world cools and grows dark, the light from the setting sun changes radically, bursting into a brilliant rainbow halo that refracts crazily in a thousand directions all around. It is a little like looking at a natural kaleidoscope, the world swirling into a panoply of colors she hadn't expected and could never have predicted.

"I can't see it as well as you probably can," John comments, voice light and idle. "Your eyesight is a little better than mine. Pretty cool, right?"

She assumes he's saying it with a waggle of his eyebrows, like he tends to when he is particularly impressed with himself. She doesn't look to check. For once, she is simply enraptured with the sight before her. It is almost impossibly beautiful.

It only lasts for maybe another 30 seconds before the forest starts absorbing most of the sun's rays, and the spectacle disappears into the cool blue of twilight. John returns Vriska's glasses, and she stays quiet even after she puts them on, looking out over the horizon, expression inscrutable. As the silence stretches on, John starts to shift a little nervously, tugging on his sleeve and glancing sideways at her. After all, it's pretty weird for Vriska to shut up for even two seconds, much less a full minute.

"Vriska?"

"Yes, John?"

"Uhhh, what's up?"

"What's up, John Egbert, is that you are an idiot." She turns her head to look at him and suddenly beams, all fangs and bright teeth, and her smile is beautiful in its own way. "I mean, this is maybe the most stupidly romantic thing anybody has ever thought of. I am pretty much expecting you to show up outside my house in your dad's car armed with a boom box when you try to ask me out to prom at this point. Because that would suit you! Dumb cheesy romantic gestures like this that I am positive you got out of all those crappy movies you still watch."

He starts to say something - to protest, maybe, that they aren't crappy, or at least not as crappy as the shit he used to like, which is now fully embarrassing, what was wrong with him at age thirteen anyway - but she shuts him up with a hand over his mouth. Her smile is softer now, close-lipped, but there is something sweet and fond in it that is exceptionally rare for her.

"I like that, John. I've always liked that about you." Swiftly, before he can try to pull off any other ridiculous stunt, she removes her hand and replaces it instead with a warm press of lips, curling one hand into his hair. John simply laughs against her mouth, relieved and pleased with himself all at once, and grasps her face in both hands so he can kiss her back, and better. They hold each other there as all the light seeps from the world and they are left in the dusk, and overhead, the stars begin to appear.

 

* * *

 

It's not that often that the dead dream. When Vriska wakes up in her cabin, she cannot fully remember what it was about. She recalls rainbows and stars, which is weird, because who cares about stupid shit like that? But for some reason she can't get the vague images out of her mind, nor the impression that she has forgotten something important. So she leaves her cabin, floating her way up to the crow's nest. Most of the rest of the crew is down below. The dead don't need to sleep - the dead don't need to do very much - but they often do regardless, because old habits remain even when the need for them has died.

She hovers there, a hand on the mast, and looks out into the shattered black horizon. Even what vague impressions she could grasp from her dream fade, and soon she can remember no details of it at all. The only thing that remains is a feeling of tender loss deep down in her core, and she cannot, for the life or death of her, figure out why.


End file.
